Companies fail to employ required quota of disabled workers: Report

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

Hürriyet Photo

Private businesses do not employ enough disabled workers to fill their required quotas, with over 25,250 vacant spots despite legal obligations.

Over 16,000 businesses nationwide are required to employ disabled citizens, with 28 percent of those businesses rounding the total up to 4,765 companies, located in Istanbul.

Nearly 103,000 disabled citizens should be employed by thousands of different businesses thanks to legal requirements, but only 75 percent of businesses fulfill their quota, leaving around 77,547 disabled people employed. The remaining 25 percent, which equals to 25,250 unemployed disabled workers, is left unused by companies, despite legal provisions.

Each unemployed disabled person costs businesses around 1,700 Turkish Liras per month last year, with last year’s fines adding up to over 32 million liras. The fine was recently raised to 1,832 liras a month.